USING SERVQUAL TO MEASURE THE SERVICE QUALITY OF TRAVEL AGENTS IN GUANGZHOU, SOUTH CHINA

Ruiqi, Zhou; Adrian, Pritchard. Journal of Services Research 9.1 (Apr-Sep 2009): 87-107. Turn on hit highlighting for speaking browsers Hide highlighting

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Translate Abstract The research used the SERVQUAL scale proposed by Parasuraman et al (1985 and 1988) to investigate the service quality of travel agents in Guangzhou, South China from a customer perspective. The instrument proved to be valid and reliable with the results of the survey showing that there is a gap between expected service and perceived service. The largest gap was in the dimension of reliability. The item scale within this dimension showed large negative gaps between expectation and perception in the ability of travel agents to perform the service right first time and complete their promised tasks. The gap in the dimensions and items of reliability are in line with SERVQUAL studies into other service industries in China. Further research is required to compare industries in this emerging market, particularly in the construct of reliability. The authors also believe there is a need for further research to compare differences within China bearing in mind the size, cultural and linguistic differences and geographical spread of this market. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

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Headnote The research used the SERVQUAL scale proposed by Parasuraman et al (1985 and 1988) to investigate the service quality of travel agents in Guangzhou, South China from a customer perspective. The instrument proved to be valid and reliable with the results of the survey showing that there is a gap between expected service and perceived service. The largest gap was in the dimension of reliability. The item scale within this dimension showed large negative gaps between expectation and perception in the ability of travel agents to perform the service right first time and complete their promised tasks. The gap in the dimensions and items of reliability are in line with SERVQUAL studies into other service industries in China. Further research is required to compare industries in this emerging market, particularly in the construct of reliability. The authors also believe there is a need for further research to compare differences within China bearing in mind the size, cultural and linguistic differences and geographical spread of this market.

INTRODUCTION The Chinese tourism industry has witnessed an incredible boom in the past 20 years. According to statistics released by World Tourism Organization in 1999, China was ranked seventh in 1998 in terms of revenue generated by tourists (Zhang et al., 2000). However, the attention paid to service quality in the industry is questionable and the number of complaints made by customers has been increasing. For example, in 2004 alone, there were around 700 complaints about service in the travel industry1. Despite this, the research devoted to service quality in the industry in China is relatively small compared to those conducted in countries elsewhere. As an emerging market and potentially a very large one there is a gap in the literature and a need to investigate if constructs developed in North American and European markets are valid in a Chinese context. LITERATURE REVIEW Service Quality Gronroos (1982) suggests that the perceived quality of a service will be the result of an evaluation process in which customers compare their perceptions of service quality delivery and its outcome against what they expected. Expectation provides a standard of comparison against which customers judge an organisation's performance (Lovelock, 2001). It is defined as the customer's frame of reference with respect to a product/service that allows anticipation of product/ service performance (Bitner et al. 1990). Based on focus-group research, Parasuraman et al. (1985) proposed that the construct of service quality involves a comparison of expectations with performance. According to them, service quality is a measure of how well the service level delivered matches customer expectations. The fact that the construct involves perception means judgement may differ among individuals and would be based on the cultural framework that the person brought to the event (Ueltschy et al., 2007). Parasuraman et al dimensions of service quality While customers can judge the quality of manufacturing goods in terms of functions and standards, they find it difficult to measure service quality because they have to assess not only the outcome of the service, but more importantly the process of the delivery of that service. In this respect, before customers purchase a service, they have expectations about service quality that are based on individual needs, past experiences, word-of mouth recommendations, and a service provider's marketing communications (Parasuraman et al., 1988). Parasuraman et al., (1988; 1991) attempted to define the dimensions of service quality. A ten dimensional model was later simplified into five major dimensions, namely reliability, responsiveness, assurance, tangibles and empathy. Reliability refers to the ability to perform the service promised. Responsiveness concerns the readiness and willingness in providing the services. Assurance involves the politeness and courtesy in delivering the services and the believability and trustworthiness conveyed to customers. Empathy is defined as the

understanding of customers' individual needs and specific requirements. Finally, tangibles includes the physical evidence of the service such as facilities, equipments and personnel. A questionnaire is the instrument used consisting of 22 item statements within the five dimensions. Other approaches to the dimensions of service quality Besides Parasuraman and his colleagues, there are a number of other researchers who also have contributed to the definition of service quality. Gronroos (1990) for example, outlined two dimensions of service quality: technical quality, which involves the tangible product of the service; and functional quality, which involves the manner in which the service is delivered. Lehtinen and Lehtinen (1991) proposed a five dimension framework to define service quality: physical quality, which refers to the physical elements of the service; interactive quality, which is the quality of the interaction between the receiver and provider at the moment of the delivery of the service; corporate quality, which "is developed during a history of contact between service provider and customer, and is to do with the symbolic way in which customers see the service provider's corporate entity, image and profile". Process quality, which is a customer's qualitative assessment of their experience in the service process; and output quality, which is the customer's evaluation of the outcome of the service interaction process. Juran (1986) viewed service quality from five different dimensions: internal quality, hardware quality, software quality, time promptness, and psychological quality. Internal quality refers to the quality not visible to customers, such as the level of maintenance of the facilities in the travel agents. Hardware quality is the tangible quality visible to the customers, such as the decoration of the travel agents. Software quality means such intangible quality as the sufficiency of information in pamphlets. Time promptness refers to the promptness of the delivery of service. Finally, psychological quality is the attitude of the service people towards the customer. Despite the difference in defining service quality by different researchers, there are some similarities in their findings. First, they all agree that the attributes of service quality result from expectancies and experiences and the satisfaction or dissatisfaction deriving from those experiences provide. The experiences themselves are relatively intangible and vary in relative importance across situations and individuals. Second, customers weigh the attributes of service quality largely on their expectations, and therefore, dimensions of customer expectancies should receive ample attention from researchers and practitioners as well. Lastly, the relationship between these dimensions and the actual choice of a service depends largely on how satisfied the customers are with the service. Parasuraman et al. (1985; 1988) pointed out that there are gaps within the service organization that result in service quality problems and dissatisfaction of the service receiver. They identified four potential gaps within the service organization that may lead to the fifth and most serious gap: the difference between what customers expected and what they perceived was delivered. The four gaps are listed below:

Gap 1: Customer expectation - management perception gap Gap 2: Management perception - service quality specification gap Gap 3: Service quality specifications - service delivery gap Gap 4: Service delivery - external communication gap This model is separated into two parts, the upper part is viewed from the customers' perspective while the lower part from the managers' point of view. According to their model, service quality is the comparison of customers' expectations of service (E) with their perceptions of the actual performance of the service delivered (P). The gap score is evaluated in accordance with a disconfirmation paradigm: if E > P, this is regarded as a negative disconfirmation; if E < P, this is treated as a positive disconfirmation. The four gaps in the lower part of the model determine the level of actual performance of the service delivered by service providers, which in turn influence the major gap between customer expectation and perception of the service in the upper part of the model. The ultimate goal in improving service quality is to narrow the fifth gap as much as possible. But to achieve this, service providers may have to reduce / close the 4 gaps shown above. The strength of the gap model is that it offers generic insights and solutions that can be applied across industries. What it doesn't attempt to do is to identify specific quality failures that may occur in particular service businesses. Each firm must develop its own customized approach to ensure that service quality becomes and remains a key objective. SERVQUAL is considered a reliable measurement tool to measure service quality and has been applied across many industries (Ueltschy et al 2007; Arambewela and Hall 2006) and different international markets (Zhou 2004). Its adaptability being seen as one of its strengths (Weekes et al., 1996). However, like most models, it is not without defects. Criticism is in the area of validity, reliability and generalisability (Teas, 1993; Cronin and Taylor 1992; Vilares and Coelho, 2003). The applicability of SERVQUAL across different cultures is also an issue (Parikh, 2006; Raajpoot, 2004; Zhou, 2004). Coulthard, (2004) points out that many studies failed to replicate the methodology of the model. The researchers in these studies either made change to the administration of both the expectations and perceptions test batteries or revised the 22-item format. These replication studies also failed to identify the five putative dimensions of SERVQUAL. Carman (1990) questioned the methodology used to develop it and proposed that both expectation and perception attributes should be measured in one combined scale instead of in separate scales. He also questioned the generalisability of the model and argued that it could not be applied to any service. It needed to be customized to the specific service. Babakus and Boller (1992) also indicated that the dimensionality of service quality might depend on the type of services under study. Review of related empirical studies-travel agents Previous research has demonstrated the effectiveness of applying the model in the tourism industry (Atilgan, et al, 2003; Bign et al., 2003; Juwaheer and Ross, 2003; Diaz-Martin et al.,

2000; Luk, 1997). For example, Diaz-Martin et al. (2000) concluded that different expectations of the service quality would lead to tourist satisfaction at different levels. Juwaheer and Ross (2003) identified that assurance and reliability ranked as the top two dimensions in determining service quality, based on research of the service quality of hotels in Mauritius. Bign et al. (2003) confirm the reliability of the instrument in the context of Spanish travel agencies and the importance of the reliability dimension. Compared with the many studies focusing on the service quality and tourism industry, the literature contributing to the service quality of travel agents is small in number. Luk (1997) demonstrated a positive correlation between marketing culture of a travel agent and the overall service quality. O'Neill et al. (2000, cited in Atilgan, 2003) studied five tour operators in Australia but adopted descriptive statistics only. They claimed that assurance was the most prominent indicator of overall service performance. Lam and Zhong (1999) used the model to assess service quality amongst travel agents in Hong Kong. The five dimensions with an adjusted 26 item scale were used to take account of the context of the study. The largest gap scores were in the dimension of reliability, followed by responsiveness, reliability also was the highest scoring dimension in terms of expectations. Regression analysis revealed it to be the most important dimension in predicting customer overall satisfaction, followed by responsiveness and assurance, which were combined in the modified scale. Johns et al. (2004) conducted a survey in Northern Cyprus to measure the service quality perceived by travel agent customers and evaluate its usefulness as a tool for improving service delivery. The largest gap score means were in the dimensions of tangibles followed by reliability. The regression analysis of gap item scores demonstrated that promptness of service, instilling confidence in customers, completion of promised tasks, modern looking office dcor and personal attention by employees were the most important determinants of customer satisfaction. The authors though pointed out the need to understand the findings in the context of an industry dominated by family businesses and with limited resources. Atilgan et al. (2003) examined the relative importance attached to each of the expected and perceived service-quality dimensions and the comparative perspective of distinct tourist groups in terms of their expectation and perceptions and to find a new method for evaluating service quality. The tour operator selected was one of the top-five Turkish operators. Both interview and questionnaire were adopted as investigation tools within the framework. Separate interviews were held with the management and staff of the tour operator. These interviews resulted in the development of 26 items related to the five service dimensions of the original SERVQUAL scale. The subjects of the questionnaire survey were two groups of tourist from Germany and Russia, with 100 tourists in each group. The study led to several conclusions: No significant difference was found between the two groups of tourists in terms of their expectation of the service. Both groups attached importance to service delivery on promises, willingness to help tourists, trust, confidence, and empathy. Cultural differences were found between the two groups in terms of their perception of the performance of the service provided by the same tour operator.

Review of related empirical studies-Chinese market Zhao et al. (2002) used SERVQUAL to investigate consumers' perception of service quality in a department store in Tianjin, North China. Gap analysis revealed the largest average gaps from consumers to be in the dimension of reliability. Though the data did not support the five factor structure, the five dimensions were still felt to be useful as a foundation for discussion and determination of areas of improvement. Problems were also identified in the negative wordings within the instrument. Zhou (2004) used SERVPERF to examine customer service in Chinese banks in Eastern China finding that the dimensions of reliability/ assurance primarily drive satisfaction, whereas the other dimensions remain insignificant. He further claimed that the results reflected the nature of banking services in general and `reflected the lack of trust perceived by Chinese customers towards local banking services. Lai et al. (2007) used SERVQUAL in a Chinese mobile communication setting, the company name and location was kept anonymous. They found the instrument valid but felt in this context convenience was an important additional dimension to the traditional five dimension model. They split the importance of the dimensions into a three- tier structure using confirmatory factor analysis. The first tier, the most important were responsiveness, assurance and empathy, within the second tier were reliability and convenience, the third- tier and least important was tangibles. The instrument was also used in a different way as rather than using traditional gap analysis it was used to compare two companies and analyse competitive gap scores. The studies mentioned above came to the conclusion that consumers attach more importance to some items or dimensions than the others in terms of expectations and perception of the service. The studies differ in that some changed the five dimensions of the model and all adjusted the item scales within the dimensions for contextual reasons. The research undertaken in China though limited tends to support the importance of the reliability dimension, with the exception of Lai et al. (2007) AIMS OF THE STUDY The study investigates the expectations and perceptions of Chinese consumers in the context of travel agents in South China. The SERVQUAL instrument was used to see if any gaps exist, if there are any differences in the importance of the service quality dimensions and to evaluate the usefulness of the model in a Chinese context. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY Framework The framework of the study is based on Parasuraman et al's SERVQUAL model discussed above. The authors accepting the dimensions of SERVQUAL as being generic and able to capture the construct of service encounter quality (Raajpoot 2004).

This study focused on the upper part of the scale and measured the service quality of the travel agents from the customers' point of view. This means only the final gap between travel agentscustomers' expectation of the service and the perceived performance of that service was investigated. However, the five dimensions are not supposed to be of similar importance to the final perception of service quality. To know the relative importance of these dimensions of service quality is helpful to enhance service quality of travel agents in China. Based on this, we worked out the theoretical framework for the present study (Figure 2). Design of the study The city of Guangzhou was used for data collection because it is generally acknowledged to be the capital of tourism in South East China. The tourism industry is more advanced and Guangzhou has more travel agents than most of the other cities and regions in China. There are now around 80 travel agents in Guangzhou2. The four travel agents that enjoy the largest market share in Guangzhou as released by the National Travel Bureau are Guangdong Zhonglu, Guangzilu, Guangdong Guolu and Guangdong Tianqin3. Although it's better to investigate the service quality provided by a specific travel agent with a view to validity, the top four travel agents were chosen as customers are widely dispersed and it would have been difficult and impractical to gain access to the large population who have received service from the same travel agent. Data collection The sample for the survey consisted of people who were interviewed when leaving the travel agents and who had used the service. The survey was conducted from April 15, 2005 to May 20, 2005. There were 221 questionnaires for data analysis. Data analysis Data were analysed using SPSS 12. Scale reliability and validity were tested using Cronbach's alpha. Paired t-tests were used to test significant differences between expectations and perceptions. Multiple regression analysis was used to determine the relative importance of the service quality dimensions in predicting overall customer satisfaction. Questionnaire design The questionnaire was designed on the basis of the revised fivedimension SERVQUAL scale proposed by Parasuraman et al. (1991). It has been argued that modifications might be required to reflect the specific characteristics of a particular industry (Stafford 1999). Although most of the 22 items under the 5 dimensions were retained, to take account of the specific context of the study, alternations were made with reference to the empirical studies made by Atilgan, et al. (2003) and Johns et al. (2004). Alterations were also made for linguistic reasons for example the English words expectation and perception are difficult to express in simple Chinese terms so changes to the wording were made to make the meaning clearer. Translation was validated by using established procedures (McGorry 2000).

The final questionnaire consisted of two parts, with Part I dealing with respondents' individual information and Part II asking for respondents' evaluation of their expectation and perception of the service of the travel agents in question. Respondents were requested to score each of the 22 questionnaire items using a 5-point likert scale ranging from very low expectation (1) to very high expectation (5) and from very dissatisfied (1) to very satisfied (5). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Data reliability The Cronbach alpha test was applied to determine the reliability of the data collected. The values for the five dimensions in the present study are all above 0.7 and an overall value of Cronbach of 0.95, indicating high internal reliability of the data (Nunnally & Bernstein 1994). Gap Analysis The gap scores were analysed for each of the five dimensions, means were all negative, (see Table 2) indicating that customers' perception of the actual performance of the service was lower than the level of their expectation of the service. The two dimensions with the largest gaps were in the areas of reliability (gap mean = -1.19) and assurance (gap mean = -0.89), which is consistent with the result in the previous studies of Lam and Zhang (1999), Juwaheer and Ross (2003) and Johns et al. (2004). The smallest gap scores (-0.43) were largely within the dimension of tangible items, indicating customers were relatively satisfied with the tangible aspects of travel agents service. The results are also consistent with Zhao et al. (2002) whose study of a Chinese department store found the biggest gap to be in the dimension of reliability followed by tangibles and assurance. In terms of the gap scores of the 22 items (T scores in Table 3 below)) the largest gaps are in the attributes of performing the service right first time (Number 8, Table 3) and completion of promised tasks (6), these items both being in the reliability dimension. These items also have the highest mean scores in terms of expectancy. Lam and Zhang (1999) found the highest gaps in never too busy to respond (14), followed by a sincere interest in solving customer problems (9) and completion of promised task (6). Zhao et al. (2002) found the largest gap scores from a customer perspective to be in the items of when an employee promise to do something he/she does it (6) and be sympathetic to customers and show a sincere interest in resolving problems (9). Correlation between expectation, perception and overall service quality Results in Table 4 show that expectation means were negatively correlated with the gap score means (r = -0.42, p < 0.01). This showed that the higher the expectation people had for the service quality the less satisfied they felt of the service quality actually delivered. However, the perception means were positively correlated to gap score means (r = 0.702, p < 0.01) which was in line with the findings of Johns et al. (2004) that the poor performance of the service providers would lead to lower satisfaction levels in the service receivers. The results indicate that high

expectations of the service receiver and low performance of the service provider together were responsible for large negative gap scores. The importance of the five dimensions of service quality in predicting customer satisfaction Multiple regression analyses was conducted. The five dimensions of perception were entered as independent variables. The overall level of perception of the service performed was employed as the dependent variable. The results in Table 5 suggest that all five dimensions were significantly important to the overall customer expectation and perception of the service experienced. The difference in the value of Beta coefficients for each dimension was not big enough to make significant difference in the measurement of the customers' perception of the service delivered. This contrasts with previous industry studies, which concluded that different expectations of the service quality would lead to tourist satisfaction at different levels. The above suggests that respondents attach similar importance to the five dimensions measuring service quality. Though the result is not significant, tangibles being regarded as the least important dimension is in line with previous Chinese studies (Lai et al. 2007) and Asian studies (Mattila, 1999). Lam and Zhang (1999) using amended dimensions found the least important dimension to be resources and corporate image, though the next least important was tangibility. All dimensions were statistically significant. IMPLICATIONS The Study revealed there was a gap between expectations and perceptions of customers. The results of the negative gap scores between expectation and perception items indicate that the overall service quality of the top four travel agents in Guangzhou is not satisfactory. This result is in line with the increasing number of complaints made about the service of travel agents. According to the statistics released by the Consumer Association, the number of complaints made about service in travel industry in 2004 alone was as high as 704, 40.6% of the total complaints in the service industry4. Though regression coefficients showed the five dimensions to all be significantly important, reliability was the most important determinant of customer satisfaction and tangibles the least important. This is to some extent in line with previous studies but the difference between the dimensions importance is smaller. The unsatisfactory service quality perceived by customers in this study implies that travel agents should attach more importance to the improvement of their service quality particularly in the areas of performing the service right first time and completion of promised tasks. The result of the study and secondary research show that to narrow the gap between the two attributes, the travel agents need to not only lower the expectation of customers but also improve the actual performance the service delivered. Travel agents should not overstate their promised

service quality, which may result in higher customer expectation of the service. Otherwise when the agents fail to perform the service as promised, customer expectation is hard to meet and service quality is considered low. For example, nearly 8% of complaints about service quality concerned the overstatement in the advertisement of the travel agents in 20045. Meanwhile, in order to improve service quality, travel agents also need to understand the expectation of the customers in advance, improve management skills and the qualities of the service personnel with a view to improving the performance of the service. Travel agents should try to narrow the other four gaps in SERVQUAL scale in order to finally narrow the fifth gap and succeed in improving service quality. LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH First, the study measured the service quality provided by travel agents from only the customers' point of view. However, managers and employees of travel agents are a major part of the service. Their perception of customers' expectations, the translation of their perceptions into service quality and their communication with the customers are critical to the final perceived service quality of the travel agents. Therefore, future studies are suggested to conduct surveys of managers and employees as well, particularly within the construct of reliability. Secondly, the present study was conducted to investigate the service quality of the four top travel agents in Guangzhou. However, as the service provided by each individual travel agents are different from each other, the level of service quality of each of the four is difficult to judge. So, further studies are recommended to investigate specific travel agents and analyse competitor gaps (Lai et al. 2007). Thirdly there is the issue of cultural sensitivity (Furrer et al., 2000; Uelttschy and Krampf, 2001) as the scale was developed in a Western culture and applied in an Eastern one, more rigorous research is required in this area. Finally there is the difference within China. Lai et al. (2007) acknowledge that the importance of SERVQUAL dimensions may vary among businesses, industry settings and cultures. The authors would add that there may be differences within countries. The other studies we cite were conducted in other parts of China. Guangzhou is in the south east of the country and is a Cantonese speaking area. The authors call for more research in the area of regional differences within China as they believe it may be unwise to consider this market as a homogeneous one. Footnote End Notes 1. http://news.21cn.com/domestic/qita/2004/07/23/1668971.shtml 2. http://travel.on-line.cn/content.asp?id=314&catalog=6 3. http://news.xinhuanet.com/fortune/2005-05/13/content_2953812.htm

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Cite Subject Studies; Quality of service; Travel agencies; Reliability; Expectations; Perceptions; Comparative analysis Location China Classification 9130: Experiment/theoretical treatment 9179: Asia & the Pacific 8350: Transportation & travel industry Title USING SERVQUAL TO MEASURE THE SERVICE QUALITY OF TRAVEL AGENTS IN GUANGZHOU, SOUTH CHINA Author Ruiqi, Zhou; Adrian, Pritchard Publication title Journal of Services Research Volume 9 Issue 1 Pages 87-107 Number of pages 21 Publication year 2009 Publication date Apr-Sep 2009 Year 2009 Publisher Institute for International Management and Technology Place of publication Gurgaon Country of publication India Publication subject Business And Economics--Management ISSN 09724702

Source type Scholarly Journals Language of publication English Document type Feature Document feature Tables;References;Diagrams ProQuest document ID 195549561 Document URL http://e-resources.pnri.go.id:2058/docview/195549561?accountid=25704 Copyright Copyright Institute for International Management and Technology Apr-Sep 2009 Last updated 2010-06-05 Database 2 databases View list